Democratizing Africa's
Wealth By Nationalizing Natural Resources

Marikana massacre[Op-Ed: Africa]
A little more than a year ago, South African police opened fire on platinum
mine workers engaged in a wildcat strike in Marikana, South Africa.
When the smoke cleared, more than 30 strikers lay dead with dozens more
injured.

Labor problems in South
Africa’s mining industry remain unresolved
because only days ago, 80,000 gold mineworkers went on strike complaining of
“slave wages.”

Lesiba Seshoka of the National Union of Mineworkers is quoted as saying:
“The union is aware of the devastating impact industrial action would have on
the economy, which is largely a White man’s economy with no benefits for poor
Black mineworkers.”

Negotiations broke down and the union demanded a 60% increase in wages after
receiving an offer of a 6.5 percent raise. There is a high level of resentment
because the union contends that corporate executives have continued to award
themselves huge bonuses notwithstanding slumping South African gold sales.
Another mineworkers’ union argues that the wage structure for mine laborers is
the same as that used during South
Africa’s apartheid era. Both observers and
those involved have expressed fears of violence.

South Africa’s
continuing labor woes suggest that it may be time to commence an escape from
the traditional White owner/Black laborer paradigm.

For example, in neighboring Zimbabwe
the government has called for the “indigenization” of foreign-owned mines.
Under the plan, such mines would be seized and then controlling interest would
be transferred to Black Zimbabwean investors. Certainly the potential would
remain for the new Black owners to establish an exploitative, oppressive
relationship with their employees, but the removal of these valuable natural
resources from foreign corporate control is a significant step toward genuine
African self-determination.

The South African mineworker dilemma brings into sharp focus the question
that has been deliberately ignored, but which has loomed large since the first
African finger was lifted decades ago to resist colonialism. That is, who will
own and control Africa’s oil, diamonds, gold,
platinum, and other mineral wealth?

During the latter phase of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa the issue was not
effectively addressed by Nelson Mandela’s organization, the African National
Congress (ANC). This was likely a deliberate, strategic decision based on an
intuitive, if not informed understanding of the violent lengths to which the
western corporate establishment will go to retain control of its African
operations and resources that are worth uncountable billions of dollars.

The result of the ANC approach was a relatively peaceful transition from
White minority to Black majority occupation of government positions, but it
merely delayed violent confrontations between the suffering African masses who
rightfully demand economic justice and western corporate exploiters.

The Marikana massacre is a prime example. In anticipation of these
conflicts, the U.S.,
acting in the interest of western corporations, has developed U.S. Africa
Command (AFRICOM) as a means of engaging in violent African conflicts with
finesse and through proxy African armed forces that AFRICOM trains and directs.

There is no time like the present to return to the question of who will own
and control Africa’s wealth. Indigenization is
a good start, but the ultimate answer must inevitably involve full-scale
nationalization of all major natural resources with genuine control exercised
by all of Africa’s people through government
structures that ensure not only political democracy, but real economic
democracy as well.

Some may worry that nationalization might prompt foreign owners to flee with
their capital and machinery, leaving Africans unable to mine their own wealth.
However, that and other hazards can be avoided with careful planning.

Foreign owners can be alerted in advance to plans for seizures and a
timetable for withdrawal can be developed collaboratively. Winding down and
withdrawal can be accomplished in phases giving owners opportunities to leave
or even enter into contracts with the African governments for continuing
non-proprietary involvement in the country’s mining industry.

Incentive for foreign corporate cooperation with this process can come from
regional unity and the consequent elimination of the option of simply
relocating to a neighboring country.

In the event that an African country is forced to go it alone without
foreign capital and machinery, an investment of the nation’s treasury --in
affordable increments if necessary-- in the needed means of production would be
money well spent given that mining is highly profitable and likely to result in
very high returns for the country.

As always, the risk in all of this is that western governments will
manufacture a “crisis” that supposedly justifies a military invasion and the
takeover of mining operations.

This only underscores the vital importance of a continent-wide understanding
of the high stakes and the necessity of continental unity in the face of such a
threat, even if only a single African country is in direct jeopardy. Unity to
that degree can prevail, because even western powers would not relish a war
against the entire African continent.